On March 2nd I rode out with Wayne, Cherie and Mary to the Caumsett Park 50k in Long Island, NY. Having signed up to run the L.A. Marathon the following weekend, I had no intention to run, but to volunteer. For the Vermont 100 I needed 8 hours of volunteer service. I could have used the day I volunteered for the Telluride Mountain Run this past summer for my requirements, but I think it's good to give back and help out for the sake of helping out…and since my friends Cherie Yanek and Mary Harvey were running, I figured I could cheer them along as well.

Riding to the race, the first thing I noticed was how much more snow was on the ground than last year when I went to film a short documentary about Ray K. It was virtually bare ground then, but this year had a decent deposit of snow. As luck would have it, the wind never picked up during the day, so even though there was more snow, it was much warmer than last year.

The start of the Caumsett Park 50k.

I watched the start of the race, then rode out to the marathon mark to help with timing. They had a special mat at the 26.2 mark so the fast runners could gain a Boston qualifying time in addition to their 50k finish. I spent the first few hours entering numbers in the computer to double check against the chip timing for the marathon, then went back to the tent by the start/finish line to print out results and split times for runners who had finished.

As I printed out statistics, I got to chat with a number of other volunteers and runners and met a lot of people. The Greater Long Island Running Club seemed like a solid organization and community to be a part of and the highlight of the day was getting to know various people at the race. Both the men's and women's course records ended up being broken, so it was an exciting event to be a part of. I was very thankful to get a ride out of the park by Rich from the Broadway Ultra Society…I've been wanting to do a timed event for a while, like a 6 hour or 12 hour...I'll have to do one of his races at some point.

So now I've filmed at Caumsett one year and volunteered another. The only thing left to do is run it. Would be a great course for a fast 50k time or a Boston qualifier, and it's only an hour away from Brooklyn:)